Transforming
Adah Noelting’s role in region’s startup scene is designing, building and decorating workplaces
KITCHENER — Building a small meeting room that holds four people can cost $10,000 once the fire alarms, sprinklers, lights and power are included.
So Adah Noelting designed one that is essentially a covered desk on wheels. It can be easily moved to a quiet area or closer to a window. It comfortably holds four people on upholstered seats and has a table for their laptops.
“I call them quiet booths,” Noelting said during an interview in one of her favourite downtown coffee shops.
After researching the many regulations for office-building construction, fire codes and electrical systems, Noelting designed the compact, mobile work stations. These fourwheeled innovations are now found in the offices of at least two startups.
She plays an increasingly visible role in the region’s burgeoning startup scene — designing, building and decorating the workplaces. Startups comprise 75 per cent of her business right now.
Competition for talent can be fierce among tech companies. So a beautiful, unique and cool office helps attract and retain employees.
New-economy workplaces are dream commissions for interior designers. Tech offices often include well-stocked kitchens, common areas for meals, meetings and companywide mash-ups. Typical amenities include a games room, a quiet place for napping, colourful walls, wide-open work areas, bike storage, showers and modern furniture beside restored factory carts.
That’s where Noelting and her firm, Dfy Studio, come in.
“I like to reflect the heritage of the old industrial buildings,” she said.
After graduating from St. Mary’s High School in Kitchener, Noelting studied interior design at Fanshawe College in London. With the co-op placements it was a three-year program. Then she worked for a developer and architect for five years. Interior designers must complete 5,700 hours of work with a developer-architect before writing the final exams and become a member of the Association of Registered Interior Designers of Ontario.
While logging her hours, Noelting took five different courses through the Grand Valley Construction Association that covered everything from project management, estimating jobs, profitable contracting, and architectural design.
“When you see how things are built it really helps you design it better,” said Noelting.
She designs, budgets and oversees the transformation of old industrial spaces into 21st century workplaces.
Among her clients are some of the region’s high-profile startups — Thalamic Labs’ offices in a former furniture factory on Charles Street West, Catalyst137 on Glasgow Street that is in a former tire warehouse, and the headquarters for Vidyard in a former department store on Queen Street North.
Her work can also be seen at J&P Grocery, Innova Global, the Underground Studio at Themuseum, Maxwell’s Concerts and Events, the Silver Thread Lofts, the Market Square Lofts and Heartwood Place, among others.
Her biggest canvas so far is 137 Glasgow St., called Catalyst137. That’s where Miovision is located. Miovision’s office has 65,000 square feet of space, two living walls, private booths for quiet phone calls, murals on the walls and a circle-shaped cafeteria that doubles as a
common area and meeting room.
“Catalyst is my biggest canvas, but Miovision is probably the most detailed,” said Noelting of that commission. “Overall it was 10 times more work than Catalyst.”
She designed the main lobby for Catalyst137 that includes Christie tiles for digital displays, more wall murals and meeting spaces along the walls, and the long, central corridor. She will also do the coffee shop, market and restaurant in that building, as well as two of the hardware startups locating there — Swift Labs Inc. and SnapPea Design.
“I worked on the courtyard and the overall concept of the building with SMR Architects,” said Noelting.
Dfy Studio is at 279 King St. W. in downtown Kitchener. She has two designers working for her, and a third starts next month.
When she was growing up in Kitchener, the downtown was a no-go zone for her. With its startup-driven renewal, she wanted to be part of it. “It’s an exciting time.” She marvels at the changes downtown since she attended high school. She often meets clients at the Matter of Taste coffee shop, and she can walk to the former industrial buildings in and around the city core that she turned into bright, colourful workplaces for the new economy. She lunches three or four times a week at Pure juice bar + kitchen.
“It is amazing to see what happened in downtown Kitchener in the past few years, and there is more to come.”